The present invention relates to a process and apparatus for the folding of sheets of plastic material such as dough sheets.
The automatic folding of sheeted dough for stuffed bakery products is normally carried out on a continuous conveyor by the use of a type of plough equipment, and this method works well for small products such as pirogues. However, for large sheets of dough having a width of above about 18 cm, e.g., such as sheets of dough used for the preparation of Calzone pizzas, the plough method is not satisfactory, and for certain types of dough, it does not work at all.
The methods so far proposed for folding dough sheets having a width above about 18 cm involve complicated machinery and the folding precision is easily disturbed by small variations of the dough consistency.